The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1887-12-14
CFrom the Columbia Daily RecordJ

(FrOm the Column Dla DallS hecOFu.j
At 6.45 last evening the members OF the
Bar Association assembled in tue Senate
Chamber at the State House.
After disposing of some routine business
and c,cctinS two new members, MessrS.
Paul Hemphill and T. Z. Mcclure Of Ches-
ter, the Association repaired to the Hal! OF
the House of Representatives. The mem
bers passed in by couples. the procession
being headed by the Hon. VIM. II. Parker,
the retiring President of the Association,
and the distinguished orator of the occa
sion, the Hon. Joel Prentiss Bishop Of
Massachusetts,. They were followed by
other distinguished members Of the Bar.
In few minutes every chair in the House
was occupied, not few of them by ladies.
On the Speakers platform Were the
officers of the Association, prominent mem
bers of the State and Federal Judiciary and
other honored guests.
President Parker called the meeting to
order and introduced Mr.. Bishop. Mr.
Bishop is one of the most distinguished
writers on common law IL the United
States. His oration last evening is the
first that he has delivered in forty years.
This long absence from the hustings. how
ever, has evidently not impaired his power.
The following is an imperfect synopsis OF
Mr.. Bishops Grafton.
.Nr. President and Gentlemen Of tie A$so-
ciNtiOn:
Responding to your kind invitation to
address you, at period OF rest from your
severe intellectual labors, may seem IN
grateful when l ask you TO accompany the
thoughts l am to express with your best
and most earnest thinking. 1t would be
supert1uous to request you further, as
might if you were Of any other profession,
to lay aside preconceptions and look at the
questions before US as for the first time.
But he who has learned and practiced the
common law is familiar with the courses
of fresh investigations, and with reform
inc his opinions whenever truth requires.
The topic will be, The Common Law
as System of Reasoning, How and Why
Essential to Good Government, What Its
Perils, and How Averted."
The subject is too vast for full treat
ment. But ! do not forget that | am ad-
dressing gentlemen accustomed to thinking
and reasoning, therefore capable Of sup
pIying for themselves my omissions.
Your familiarity with the common law
renders needless any defining of it By me.
But, looking at it as a system OF reason.
let ne set it for moment before you be-
side the civil law.
Mr.. Bishop then showed how the Roman
law became system of reasoning, differ
ing from ours in little else than the form of
its growth and development. As in the
countries governed by the common law, so
in those governed by the Roman, the
opI 1or,Slatn-c larJnlNy 10
yers: that is, they We're persons accus-
toned to reasoning upon legal, or govern
mental, things,
In the economy of human life and asso-
citation, we have, as the fairest gifts OF God,
love, religion and reason. l need not say
that the last is the greatest, for 1t includes
the other two. Where reason, pure and
perfect, prevails, all other good dwells:
and the place whence it is banished is,
whether in this world or the next, he'll.
t.Let US reason together" is the command
of Him from whom both we and reason
proceeded There is false reasoning; but
true reasoning conducts to all light, to al
prosperity, to all happiness.
While Rome was controlled by men who
were accustomed to reasoning she grew
and prospered But after many years, the
eternal longing and signing for laziness, the
same which has wrought immense mis-
chief in our jurisprudence, and which now
threatens to destroy it, prevailed. Justin
ian, whom it is the fashion with US to adore,
finished the work of mischief. Having
collected what he chose to preserve of the
writings of the iuristS, ne consigned the
remainder to oblivion.
The world presents now an exact paral-
lei to this. There is little island upon
which the angel of light rs she few over it
dropped spark. Spurning Justinian's
folly, she accepted reason, named it the
common law, and rose to power and
glory which mock the very brightest of
Roman dreams Her navies rule the seas,
her colonies watch the sun in all his course
around the world, her glory threw off 10
one of her flights these United States of
America. But the longing for laZiness has
of late taken possession of her. And she
threatens to substitute acts Of Parliament
for all her common law of reason: and
make it possible for all sluggards and fools
to practice at her bar and preside in her
courts. If she does it, it requires no gift
of prophecy to foresee that her encompass
ing seas will weep upon the dripping rocks
around that little island more mournful
requiem 10 her entombed empire than was
ever before sung over fallen greatness and
glory.
II you ascend the highest tower or noun
tain. peak, and in the loudest voice ask the
earth why it moves apon its axis, it can
give you no answer. 1t does not know. In
the earlier ages man did not know Yet
from the beginning it moved as it does
now. Go to the fishes and birds, and the
same facts reveal themselves
Following instinct, or conscience, or
whatever else we call it, man, while living
as all must in society, establishes various
customs and usages. After they become
universal the court takes judicial cogni-
zance of them as law Especially it takes
judicial cognizance Of reason, and of the
fact that directly or indirectly it is the
highest guide of man. 1t thus becomes
the highest guide of the court, so that our
law is denominated system of reason"
1t accepts judicial decisions as guides for
future cases, because reason teaches the i'm.
portance of stability and uniformity.
The process Of reasoning was then illus
trated and it was shown that the laws pro-
gress consists in discoveries of its just and
true reasons and in correcting old mistakes
as to them.
In method and results the common-law
lawyer resembles the scientist in nature
The scientist is constantly adding to our
knowledge of what always existed, and
the physical world of man is progressing
So II is under the common law The law